I guess the idea was why try to get a level 50 zone finished and ready for release when nobody can go there anyway? It will take some time for people to level up before they could realistically go and survive in those zones. Yes its lame, yes its lazy and yes it will completely bite VR in the butt because they will, as all developers do, underestimate the time it will take some percentage of their population to reach the point where they need to go to those zones and VR won't have them finished.
EDIT: Just to be super clear, South Saol and Tower of the Reckless Magician won't be available at release either according to what we were told in a stream. So that, to me, means South Saol isn't a mid-level zone.
Vandraad said:I guess the idea was why try to get a level 50 zone finished and ready for release when nobody can go there anyway? It will take some time for people to level up before they could realistically go and survive in those zones. Yes its lame, yes its lazy and yes it will completely bite VR in the butt because they will, as all developers do, underestimate the time it will take some percentage of their population to reach the point where they need to go to those zones and VR won't have them finished.
This doesn't make sense. South Saol is listed as a lvl 20-30 zone on the wiki. It is the area we saw in the stream prior to the TotWM stream. It's not a high lvl zone.
I'm not sure why those aren't listed.
In the stream SS was not a high end zone...but that was an old stream. Maybe it got adjusted? Hard to say. It is strange that those aren't on the list. To provide full disclosure they should probably still be there with a 0% next to them like how the "outlying islands" are listed.
That doesn't make sense either since one of the goals of alpha is to have play arc from 1-50. And the thought of having level 50 "zones" is not accurate since they have repeatedly stated they want to have content for a wide amount of levels in each zone so they get frequented more often. Wild's end has a starter area and a level 50 area almost right next to each other.
Philo's on track though. They should have had a 0% next to them if they were going to be in Alpha. Either it was a big oversight on the draft of the newsletter or they are withholding the southwestern portion of Kingsreach and Roans for later surprise. My question is how you lock out an area on an open world? Big invisible wall circa West Karanas shoreline?
I asked this same question to them in discord. I'm thinking there has to be more to it as if you look at their topographical map of Kingsreach, it has the Roans, Vae Wood and South Saol in it and supposedly this is a zoomed out version of the actual map and not concept art, they must be doing something else to these regions as the way it appears is that they are greyboxed.
Benonai said:That doesn't make sense either since one of the goals of alpha is to have play arc from 1-50.
The goals for Alpha have shfited considerably in either direction over the years. When I first pledged it was Alpha is Alpha in the sense that it will be playable, but broken and unfinished. Then it shifted to a mostly complete game for players to finalize the the various arcs and curves of gameplay. Today, from VR's tone, the benchmark for Alpha seems to be feature/system complete, but devoid of any finalized content (which would presumably be left for Beta). You don't need a complete 1-50 leveling arc for that.
Benonai said:That doesn't make sense either since one of the goals of alpha is to have play arc from 1-50. And the thought of having level 50 "zones" is not accurate since they have repeatedly stated they want to have content for a wide amount of levels in each zone so they get frequented more often. Wild's end has a starter area and a level 50 area almost right next to each other.
Incorrect, the requirements to get to alpha were changed awhile back. They are now shooting for lvl 1-30 and some features complete on Kingsreach. It used to be lvl 1-50 and feature complete on kingsreach to enter alpha. That got changed maybe a year ago now.
Philo is on the money:
20. We are shooting for complete, non-grayboxed zones for Alpha One to represent a level 1-30 experience. The full zone list will be available closer to A1 launch. Alpha One will not be all of Kingsreach as we had previously set as an early goal. More zones will be added in later Alpha phases, some of which you have already seen in early forms, others will be all-new.
Found here: Producer’s Letter – March 2021 – Pantheon – Rise Of The Fallen (pantheonmmo.com)